England Women, or Lionesses as they are more affectionately known, defeated Norway 2-1 to qualify for the Women’s World Cup quarter finals. Many hope the men were taking notes on how to do things at an International tournament; with England’s Women’s National side setting an example on the International stage.
Norway, the 1995 World Cup Winners and 2013 European Championship runners-up, were always going to be a tough obstacle for England to overcome. The Lionesses had not beaten Norwegian counterparts in four previous attempts at major tournaments. And tough it proved.
Norway dominated for large periods of the first half and the opening 9 minutes of the second half. England goalkeeper Karen Bardsley needed to be at her best at times to help keep the scores level, and it was only once Norway scored however it seemed to wake England up. The introduction of Jill Scott also helped as England finally decided to up the ante midway through the second half. Scott won the corner that led to a Steph Houghton header in the 61st minute, which cancelled out Norway’s 54th minute opener. Then in the 76th minute, a goal-of-the-tournament contender from Lucy Bronze sealed England’s first victory in a knockout match at a World Cup and in doing so paved their way to the quarter finals.
England coach Mark Sampson had this to say after the game: “The team have made history,” said Sampson. “The team deserve all the credit in the world. “We knew this was a big game for them and they wanted to ink their names in women’s football history and the team have stepped up and delivered for their country. “We dug deep, showed a lot of character and showed the passion that we have for the England shirt.”
Norway coach Evan Pellerud was complimentary towards England “England scored on their first scoring chance to level the game and we started to struggle. We became stressed. “Compliments to my English colleague who managed to do some nice tactical changes at half-time.”
England now face host-nation Canada in Vancouver on Saturday (Sunday morning UK time). Canada recently defeated England 1-0 in a pre-tournament friendly and are managed by Englishman John Herdman. With England’s women making history and seemingly full of confidence, anything can happen now and whatever does eventually happen the English, whether it be via the team or the Canadians’ coach will be heading to the semi finals.
Elsewhere in the last 16, Germany won convincingly 4-1 against Sweden. Australia beat a Brazil team that had won all their group games 1-0. Favourites France beat South Korea 3-0 with an impressive performance. China beat Cameroon 1-0. Host nation Canada defeated Switzerland 1-0 and two-time winners USA fought their way past Colombia 2-0. Japan and the Netherlands are the only two teams left to play to decide who will complete the quarter-final line up.
With the last 16 games almost complete the quarter-final matches should prove to interesting, tight and hopefully exciting affairs. The quarter-final games are as follows:
Germany vs France
China vs USA
England vs Canada
Australia vs Japan or Netherlands
